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I was wondering how professional repairmen go about removing brace-snapping, finger-joint-popping stuck slides. What tools do they use?

That's a good question. I have always wondered how this is done. Someone please reveal the secret!

*HAVE SPENT LITTLE TIME IN THE REPAIR SHOP*


Most of what I have seen, just in mass repairs of public school band instruments over the summer, is HEAT application.

Thanks! That gave some ideas to try out.

How much heat is used? Is it heating with hot water, or is a lighter enough. Or do you need something stronger?

Isn't the purpose of heat, like with the rawhide hammer tapping, to change the shape parallelity between the stuck surfaces, so that the crystalline corrosion formations will crack?

I use the max hot water temperature coming out of the tap, which is here optimized to 60°(centigrades) for hygienic purposes versus energy saving. Mostly my purpose is just about flushing the inner bore. The immediate effect also is about slides becoming harder to pull because the male branches will expand first and most.

Letting the hot water be followed by cold creates the reverse effect. A slide on one of my older instruments came unstuck that way recently. It hardly hurt, that I had applied a bit of my favourite penetrating oil (Blue Juice also for this purpose) to the ridges between slide and the receivers.

Klaus Smedegaard Bjerre

bloke wrote:Yeah...

When you get down to a "last resort" situation of soldering a big fat plug into a tuba's slide tube.. You get down to using *that much* force...and without extreme care, you can end up (quite easily) suddenly snapping two or three braces.

Of course, one of the advantages the shop has over the "home-repair" is that if the shop snaps a couple of braces they can fix it. If the owner (or her daddy) tries to avoid a trip to the shop, snapping a brace is "game over".

The other advantage is that the shop tech has ALREADY snapped a brace or 10 and has some idea of how much force is "too much" (the only real way to learn this is through destructive testing...). When you pay a shop to pull the slide, you are also paying (indirectly) for all of those "oops" moments.

Many differences between pros and amateurs can be traced to the difference in what they consider to be "temporary". My most recent epiphany had to do with home improvement: many things become possible once you realize that you really *can* take everything "down to the studs'" (and beyond...)

Making a plug is not that easy to do at home. Remember that making a plug (to be soldered in the inside "male" slide) requires a supply of brass barstock, precision tools (for measuring the slide's inside diameter and the plug's outside diameter), and a lathe to turn the outside diameter of the plug. The repair person also needs to fashion a handle for the plug, for twisting and pulling, once the plug has been soldered to the slide's inner diameter.

I'm into this very situation with a helicon project, and the earlier description of a tar-like substance was not encouraging to read.

--

Belltrouble wrote:What´s a home without a lathe???

I´m in the happy position to have one,a well equipped workshop at home and an even more professional one at work...............,disregarding a 30 year experience in working on all kinds of metal,other stuff and machinery......

That´s the advantage of being kind of toolmaker over here at germany...........

Kurt

In the US shops where I completed my machinist apprenticeship, we called personal projects "government jobs."

bloke wrote:Yeah...

When you get down to a "last resort" situation of soldering a big fat plug into a tuba's slide tube.. You get down to using *that much* force...and without extreme care, you can end up (quite easily) suddenly snapping two or three braces.

Yup! A mans got to know his limitations.

Dean E wrote:Making a plug is not that easy to do at home. The repair person also needs to fashion a handle for the plug, for twisting and pulling, once the plug has been soldered to the slide's inner diameter.

Handle?... One word: Vice-grip .... seriously

Its probably just me but the way I see this, stuck slides are not as big a deal to the skilled/experienced repair tech that works primarily on more modern horns. Older instruments, say 40 yrs. and more are another story. Yes, there are exceptions.

sequence of approaches I employ:
1) lightly tap slides telescopic tubing with a raw-hide mallet while lightly pulling hand pressure is applied.
2) same as (1) but the use of wicking strap, applied properly to the slide crook and the ends placed in a vice. firm, even pulling pressure is applied.
3) same as (2) but with the use of heat (a heat gun can work, I use a torch).
4) same as (3) but penetrating oil is used (I tend to use allison synthetic valve oil).
5) unsolder and remove slide crook, use an expandable mandrel and extract slide. If an expandable dose not have enough clearance to be properly employed, a brass plug is machined (2 min.) and soldered in place. The offending tube is carefully coaxed out (using a vice-grip) starting with a light bit of nudging (back and forth, side to side) to slowly break up the adhesion. heat may be applied along with penetrating oil (if needed).

If 5 dose not work, you are doing something wrong or the damage was so severe it was obvious at the git-go that the tubes needed to be replaced.

Daniel C. "cant remember the last time I replaced stuck slide tubes" Oberloh

Oberloh Woodwind and Brass Works
http://www.oberloh.com" target="_blank"

Pachy, I knew you still worked on your own instruments, but do you also work for a store aside of the orchestral job? I know that very few non-metropole Us orchestras have full season, but I wasn’t aware of a repair job these days.

Klaus

jbaylies wrote:I was wondering how professional repairmen go about removing brace-snapping, finger-joint-popping stuck slides. What tools do they use?

I prefer the "pull, cuss" method....and maybe with an oops somewhere in there as well.

A number of years ago, I was taught to take the customers advice and apply it where relevant but once you start letting the customer tell you how to do your job, you will soon find yourself working harder then ever and for the lowest of wages.

the elephant wrote:

Danciel C. Oberloh wrote:If 5 dose not work, you are doing something wrong or the damage was so severe it was obvious at the git-go that the tubes needed to be replaced.

Daniel C. "cant remember the last time I replaced stuck slide tubes" Oberloh

The school horns down here are usually well over 30 in age and have slide tubes that are BENT. The customers here have an aversion to new parts because they cost more money. Even when you explain, several times, in great detail, that to replace these BENT-MORE-THAN-15º-tubes-that-ALSO-have-ten-or-twelve-deep-dents-that-affect-the-inner-tube-as-well-as-the-outer that the cost to the program will be far less, usually they respond with some stupid answer like, "Well, my Booster President said no new parts." You do what the customer asks, and down here that means that you fix the damaged parts almost exclusively. And a lot of these horns come in from programs that have been "dead" for over a decade and just starting up using the old horns that have been stored during this period. They were dumped in piles into storage closets by janitors, many lacking any sort of case, just tossed into the room and forgotten. Then we would have to "make do" and pull slides that were bent or damn near cemented into place. Usually these had to come off.

Feel free to come down here and do your magic Dan.

Thanks for the offer Wade but I am happy where I am.

I have been known to piss off a Band Director or two over the years by simply not letting them dictate how I will perform a repair. As long as it is done within budget and it is performed to there satisfaction and mine, I don't see how replacement or repair should make any difference. I do school work but I don't count on it or actively persue it.



Daniel C. "who does not tell band directors how to teach and expects band directors to not tell me how to repair " Oberloh

Lots of good replies and I think Dan O is 'right on' with his comment about band directors not dictating the repair method. To date, I've never had one tell me how to fix something. I guess I've been lucky. I just figure that most of them don't know beans about fixing stuff. That's why they bring it to me in the first place.

I have one additional comment.... I NEVER attempt to remove a stuck anything while the customer is standing at my bench. There are waaaaay too many things that are unpredictable and can go wrong. My engineering background demands that I always have options and a 'way out' when things go wrong.

I hear 12 pound sledge hammers work really good

How do professional repairmen remove stuck slides?

I'm not a professional repairman, nor do I play one on television. But, I would suggest a shaped charge using HMX compounded with some type of plastic binder.